


Swelter

by imaginary_golux



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Ice, Multi, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29691636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: It's much too hot this summer, but Frodo has a place where he and Sam and Rosie can keep cool.
Relationships: Frodo Baggins/Rose Cotton/Sam Gamgee
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	Swelter

It is the hottest summer Frodo can ever remember, so hot that everything in the garden has wilted and everyone in the Shire rather feels like wilting, too. Nobody goes out-of-doors during the day if they can help it, and even the nights are sweltering; everyone leaves all their windows open in the desperate hope of catching even the smallest breeze. Despite the general hobbit distaste for swimming, the fauntlings cannot be kept out of the ponds, and even the grown hobbits have discovered that lounging about in the shallow water under the trees is marginally better than just being in the shade.

Frodo counts himself very, very lucky, because Bag End - beautiful Bag End, Bungo’s priceless gift to his beloved Belladonna - has that rarest and most wonderful of things: an ice cellar.

Most hobbits don’t bother with such things; they have _cold_ cellars, of course, which are getting an awful lot of use this summer, but an ice cellar, dug deep into the ground and lined with stone and packed with sawdust, is a rare undertaking. But Bungo spared no expense in building a smial good enough for his beloved, so deep below even the cold cellar lies the ice cellar, and Frodo has - mostly out of habit - kept it well stocked.

Now, of course, it is the most wonderful room in the house.

Frodo has been giving out ice to all the smials near Bag End as he can and as they ask, but the ice cellar itself...well, it’s not a large room. He’s letting all the fauntlings in the neighborhood come and sleep in the cold cellars during the day, which has gotten him a great deal of good credit in Hobbiton, but the ice cellar he has insisted is too small to let _anyone_ in, lest he be accused of favoritism in choosing who might enter.

He _is_ engaging in favoritism, he supposes, because the only people he’s letting join him in the ice cellar are Sam and Rosie.

...To be perfectly fair, he’s all but married to them - would have already been married, but that every celebration planned for this summer has been postponed so no one gets heatstroke - and therefore they _essentially_ count as Bagginses. (Baggins-Gamgees? They haven’t quite hashed that out yet.)

So Frodo spends the warmest hours of every day down in the ice cellar, flopped on the cool flagstones of the floor beside Sam and Rosie, holding hands with whoever is close enough - they’re all too warm to cuddle, even down here - and talking quietly about whatever comes to mind: the gardening Sam wants to do as soon as it’s cool enough, the dishes Rosie wants to make once she can cook without melting, the books Frodo means to read when he can touch the pages without fear of damp fingers.

There are so many things they had rather be doing, but at least they have this: the cool of the ice cellar, and each other’s company. It’s enough - at least until the summer ends.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the FFC prompt "Ice," and beta'd by my amazing Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.


End file.
